Analysis Of Supernumerary Gender Roles

Decent Essays
Supernumerary genders are considered to be the third or fourth genders and “involve a change of the usual association of men’s roles with the male sex and of women’s roles with the female sex” (Crapo, 2013, section 5.3). North American Indians were firm believers in supernumerary gender, and they believed those of the third or fourth gender are referred to as berdache later identified as Two Spirits. According to Crapo (2013), Two Spirits were those of neither gender and took on a mix of the female and male roles in society. Later on, anthropologists found that Two Spirits were actually not trying to become more female than male but to take on tasks from both genders. Most individuals became Two Spirits “to resolve their gender dysphoria, or

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